But if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction,
Truth to Learn
God endures the sinfulness of sinners so that His wrath and power will be seen and understood.
Behind the Words
“Show” is from endeiknumi, which means “to point out or to show forth something about oneself.”
The verb translated “make … known” is gnoridzo, meaning “to make something apparent or known to someone else.”
“Endured” is from the verb pherō, which means “to carry or bear like a burden.”
The word “longsuffering” is translated from makrothumia, which refers to “the ability to endure pain or suffering inflicted by others for a long time before getting angry.”
“Destruction” is from apōleia, which is based on the verb apollumi, meaning “to destroy fully.” The Complete WordStudy Dictionary says of this word: “apōleia refers to the state after death wherein exclusion from salvation is a realized fact, wherein man, instead of becoming what he might have been, is lost and ruined.”
Meaning Explained
In the previous verse we saw that the Apostle Paul postulated that it is fair for God to declare some righteous (through His grace) and to allow the remainder of mankind to remain destined for Hell because of their sinfulness. But that implies that there must be two classes of people on the earth, unforgiven sinners and forgiven sinners. In this and the following verse Paul will show that, in fact, there are two classes of people, and God has a purpose in allowing both.
The first class of people is the class of unforgiven sinners. Remember, according to what Paul demonstrated back in Romans 3:23, all of us are sinners. There is no human being except for Jesus Himself who is without sin. We all deserve Hell. Paul here states that God is desirous of showing His wrath against sin and sinners and He is also desirous of making His power known. In order to do this, though, He is currently being long suffering, enduring the pain of the sinfulness of those who are not chosen, until the day when He will finally pour out His wrath on the sinfulness of all mankind.
God is continuing to endure the pain of the sins of the unsaved sinners in this world. At the same time, however, he knows the eternal damnation that they will receive when He finally slams down the gavel of His judgment on them. But what about our sins? Is God longsuffering with us? The answer is no, because our sins are covered by the blood of Christ and He sees us as sinless, holy, righteous vessels of glory. We are the second class of people, the forgiven sinners.
Application
On the surface this appears harsh and unfair, but keep in mind that God cannot allow sin to abide in His presence. The unfair thing is that He has declared us to be righteous and without sin (because the penalty for our sins has been paid by Jesus Christ on the cross).
Truly, that is not fair! Praise God for His grace!
In God's service, for His glory,
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